Mask
by HDUC
Summary: In the "Pressure," "Surprise," and "Unravelling" series! The Doctor and Martha's attention is drawn to an ancient, mysterious and powerful set of books. Thee wielding of their power could have grave consequences for our heroes... or deeply pleasurable ones! Adult!
1. Chapter 1

**Bonjour, all!**

**Well, my filthy mind cannot be contained, apparently. This story is another installment in the "Pressure," "Surprise," "Unravelling" series. Let's just say that at this point in the scheme of things, the Doctor and Martha Jones are enjoying one another immensely, and sometimes in startling and/or unconventional ways! I like to think they make a game out of not having your typical sexual relationship. They are, as evidenced in previous stories, not adverse to role-play, so I think this particular scenario is right up their alley! (As such, the Doctor is keen on costumes!)**

**This will be a multi-chapter story, but I like, in general, to keep them short and smutty, so it probably won't get too epic. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!**

* * *

PART ONE

Tracking a stone-burrowing alien across the cosmos? Not as easy as it looks.

The last of its kind, the Nosaminta parasite could be responsible for any number of cave-ins or collapses in any one of a dozen galaxies. Trying to work out which trail of destruction, exactly, belonged to this particular interstellar worm was no mean feat. It required researching, and occasionally personal inspection of the ruins of mines, buildings and statues.

But using some rather primitive plaster-casting, some rather advanced nanotechnology and some rather ingenious help from his rather ingenious companion, the Doctor had tracked down the Nosaminta's unique spiral-like burrowing pattern like a fingerprint, and with some infrared scopes, he could now tell within a few seconds whether the implosion had been the fault of explosives, an accident, or malice of the Nosaminta.

He was currently scanning some structural damage on the planet Dionumah in an opera house. The building's owners were in the process of deciding how to repair the damage, and also stop it getting worse. At the moment, they thought it was a structural flaw in the foundation of the building, and were going about the problem all wrong; the Doctor could see that the key to stopping further collapse was to subdue the Nosaminta. The worm seemed to like this building a lot, and seemed to have set up shop there.

"It says here that the opera house inspectors have decided it's probably safe to go ahead with the commemorative ball," Martha said to him. "If you're sure that this is the Nosaminta causing the damage, then that might be a good way to get close to it."

"Go to a ball?" he asked, putting down his instruments, smirking.

"Sure, why not?" she retorted. "It says it's fancy dress. All the better for us; the parasite, if he even has eyes, won't recognise that it's us."

"And, there is another nice little advantage," he said, sidling up close to her.

"What's that?" she asked, oblivious to the flirtation. That is, until she looked up and saw the look on his face.

"I get to see you in costume," he whispered, smiling.

She smiled back and pressed in closer with a subtle smile of her own. "We're hunting a parasite. Wouldn't it be better to go in dressed as exterminators in hazmat suits?"

He continued to speak low and slow, almost at a whisper. He put his hands on the console behind her and closed any space between them. "All we have to do is get into where it spends its time, and leave behind little bombs that release chemicals that are only toxic to the parasite itself. Thus far, the trick has been finding where it settled down. Now that we know, it should be fairly straightforward. And no cumbersome hazmat suit needed."

"I hate wearing cumbersome things," she said. She was surprised at how breathlessly it had come out. His whispers and warm breath on her cheek were incendiary to her, lighting her up. As he knew they would.

"Indeed," the Doctor conceded, kissing her just below her left ear. "Besides, these fancy dress balls on Dionumah are _fancy_ dress. Lavish, grand, a little bit sexy."

"Well, all right then," she whispered back, sighing. "I guess we better blend in."

"Mm-hm," he growled.

* * *

After they fell into each other and combusted (which they tended to do, given very little provocation), they lay side-by-side on the floor of an anteroom just off the console room which they often used for just this sort of impromptu occasion. The Doctor explained to her that the Dionumah planet was across the universe from Earth, but its inhabitants were remarkably similar to those of Earth. They would have no trouble becoming part of the scenery at a fancy dress ball at an opera house there.

And when they finally dragged themselves back upon their feet and returned to the console room, Martha checked out the comm screen, which showed a blinking icon with a new message for the Doctor.

It said, _Doctor, we have located the Legend of the Hepec Volumes._

"What does this mean?" she asked.

The Doctor came round the console as he sculpted his blue and brown tie into a Windsor knot, and when he saw the message, his eyebrows went up.

This was not lost on Martha.

The Doctor leaned forward and answered the message, typing in, _What about the volumes themselves?_

"What's this about?" she wanted to know.

"The Hepec Volumes are said to be the most powerful books in the universe."

She waited for him to elaborate, but when he did not, she asked, "Powerful in what way? Subversive propaganda? Religious material? Magic spells?"

"Well, no. Yes. All of that, I guess."

"All of that?"

"They're supposed to be able to do anything."

"Do anything? Like wash the dishes?"

He scratched is head. "Well, some people think that the material in the text gives the reader a kind of insight, an extraordinary enlightenment of some sort. But the Time Lords were fairly certain that the _do anything _idea was much more literal than that. Like, maybe they can _give you_ anything, create anything... make you able to perform any task, maybe. I don't know if there is an accurate account anywhere of what the volumes can do."

"But the Time Lords were after them?"

"Not after them, just investigated them as a possible threat. Or, tried to."

"So, I'm guessing they're locked away in a vault somewhere? Or else..."

"Their location is a total mystery."

"That was my next guess."

"It's like a Holy Grail sort of thing. Some folks don't even think they exist."

"But the Time Lords did."

"Yep. The Citadel Council even got hold of a reference text. It's a book _about_ the Hepec Volumes, and contains as much information as has ever been amassed all in one place."

"Like when different authors write Bible reference materials, and speculate over the content and who wrote the Gospels and stuff?"

"Exactly. There's the book about the books, and now the Legend has turned up, but the volumes themselves..."

The screen then blipped again with an incoming message. _Still lost_, it said.

"There you go," the Doctor commented, gesturing at the screen. "I don't know what good the Legend is, without the volumes."

"So, what does the Legend contain?" she asked.

"It's a decoder. It's how to interpret the volumes and make them work for you."

"And... who found it?"

"The message comes from a research conglomerate in the Trippotene Constellation. The Time Lords used to contract with them, put them in charge of finding the Legend, ostensibly to keep it out of the wrong hands. And now I'm the only one left, so they're calling me."

"Are you going to go get it?"

"Yeah, why not? What would the conglomerate do with it?"

"Wouldn't that put us in danger? Aren't there all manner of icky aliens out to find it?"

"Probably, but if they couldn't find it while it was sitting still, buried in a cave someplace, what makes you think they could find it in the TARDIS, hopping across time and space?"

"Okay, fair point," Martha admitted. "What would _you_ do with it? Put it in a hutch someplace and forget about it for another millennium?"

"I don't know. I guess I could pull out the reference text, see if there's anything we can glean from it, when combined with the Legend."

"The reference text wasn't destroyed with your planet?"

"Didn't I mention? It's in my study. I believe I've been using it to prop up an uneven table."


	2. Chapter 2

PART 2

The Doctor and Martha sat in his labyrinthine study, really more of an endless library, and read. It had taken the better part of twelve hours to locate the annotated reference text, as the book being used to prop up the uneven table turned out to be a Portuguese/German dictionary. The reference they sought was actually in with a bunch of cookbooks.

"What's it doing here?" Martha had asked.

"I don't know," he had answered with a shrug. "Because the _Annotated reference guides to the most powerful books in the universe_ section is full?"

He sat at a table reading the reference text, and Martha was lying nearby, feet in the air, elbows and stomach on the floor, perusing the Legend, which they had picked up the day before. It had been a surprisingly small book - no more than ten pages, and the size of a mass market paperback. But the spine had crumbled over the millennia, so it laid open on the floor without any extra pressure from Martha's hand. Which was good, because the pages were so brittle, Martha was afraid to touch them.

"None of this makes any sense to me, you'll be shocked to hear," she commented. "Maybe it's a problem with the TARDIS' translation circuit. Or with my brain."

"No," he rebuffed. "It's probably just _that_ cryptic. You didn't really expect it to read like a Harry Potter book did you?"

"S'pose not," she agreed. "But listen to this: _Manuscript and corporeal essence comport in tandem after a fashion. Such is verity unvarnished. Personal deployment ignored by a communal arena manifests the proceedings unfurled upon the folio."_

The Doctor frowned at her, boring holes into her eyes with his own.

When he didn't say anything for a few long moments, Martha said, "I mean, I understand _the words_ individually, but as sentences, as paragraphs... wow. I mean, does it rhyme in some other language? I can't make heads or tails of it."

"Keep reading," he commanded, continuing to frown.

"Er, okay," she said, now trying to re-find her place in the text. "_No purveyor nor accomplice crosses victory by way of fabrication. Unadulterated fortitude derives itself from accounts' being. Mark, elect a font of lexis with profound prudence; elect not but the maximum of precise aspect."_

"Read it again," he said. "Start from where you started before."

"_Manuscript and corporeal essence comport in tandem after a fashion," _she said.

"_Manuscript and corporeal essence_... " he repeated. "The text - the Hepec Volumes - and the person, or the physical being who wants to use them..."

"_Comport in tandem..._" Martha said, suddenly lighting up. "Act together?"

He nodded. "_After a fashion_. That part is cryptic. They work together... somehow?"

"Wow. Did I just stumble across the exact part of the Legend that tells us what to do?"

"Possibly."

They looked at each other with thoughtful gazes for a few moments, and then the Doctor broke the silence. "What was the next line?"

_"Such is verity unvarnished._"

"_Verity_ _unvarnished_ is literal truth," he said.

"Oh!" she responded. "That makes sense. So... the next part is, _Personal deployment ignored by a communal arena manifests the proceedings unfurled upon the folio."_

"_Personal_ _deployment_... personal display..."

"Displaying it on your person?"

"Yes!" he shouted. "Displaying it on your person! _Ignored by a communal arena..._ so, in such a way that no-one in a public place notices it?"

Martha squinted at the text. "Yes, I think that's it. So... you have to wear it, but no-one can see it?"

"Well, maybe that's what _after a fashion_ means," he said, referring to the part of the passage he had called particularly cryptic a few moments earlier. "The book and the person may act together after _a fashion_, meaning, after something has been made into a literal piece of clothing, which you have to wear in public, but it can't be something too noticeable to the general public."

"Wow," she exclaimed. "I think that's it!"

"And that's what it means by literal truth... _fashion_ is the literal truth. It refers to a garment."

She laughed and shook her head. "Next is _...manifests the proceedings unfurled upon the folio."_

"So, these actions will manifest... what happens upon the pages!"

Martha stared at him with jaw agape. "So, what... do you literally take the pages out of the Hepec Volumes, make them into a piece of clothing, wear it, and then whatever was happening on the pages... _happens_?"

He stared back and nodded slowly, processing. "Sounds like."

"I know I've said this before, but... wow."

"I know."

"The mind boggles to think what could be on those pages," she speculated. "The Hepec Volumes... it must be a huge collection! Whoever created this phenomenon would have wanted to allow for just about anything, otherwise, why would they be considered so powerful and dangerous? I mean, you said that the rumour is that they can do anything, so just think how much paper he or she would have used up in order to allow for as many possibilities as they could think of... "

"Yeah... hold that thought, though. Just keep reading."

She continued, "_No purveyor nor accomplice crosses victory by way of fabrication. _That just sounds like they're saying, no-one can have success by faking it."

"Exactly.

_"Unadulterated fortitude derives itself from accounts' being."_

"That part I'm not sure about," the Doctor said. "_Unadulterated_ _fortitude_ is... real power?"

"Real power derives itself from accounts' being?"

"Is this to do with numbers or money?"

"It doesn't seem like it to me," Martha said. "If they're talking about real power coming from not faking it, it seems like... I don't know, like money would be an artificial thing, something with no intrinsic value. But, I don't know, I'm not the expert."

"Well, let's move on, and see if we can work it out from context after we've got the rest."

"Okay," she agreed. "_Mark, elect a font of lexis with profound prudence; elect not but the maximum of precise aspect."_

"Mark, as a command, means _listen to this_, or _pay attention_. A _font of lexis_ is a source of words. _Profound prudence_ is great care. _The maximum of precise aspect_... it seems like this is saying... choose something that gets the details right. Or something."

"So, choose your source of words with great care. Choose something that gets the details right."

The Doctor stared off into some unknown space behind her, and muttered, "I think I get it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he continued to mutter, staring. "But I thought it was rubbish when I found it."

"Thought _what _was rubbish?"

"Well," he said, shifting his attention to the annotated reference guide in front of him. "This book is chock full of different theories on what the Hepec Volumes do."

"Right."

"And where they are, even _what _they are," he pointed out with hard eyes. "This bloke named Borstel thinks the Volumes as they have come to be known do not exist at all, that the real power lies in the Legend."

Martha looked down at the fragile pages just beneath her careful fingers.

He dived into reading what Martha assumed was Borstel's passage in the reference guide. "If he's right, then I think I know what _accounts' being _means, and that makes this whole thing a lot more dangerous than I ever thought."


	3. Chapter 3

PART 3

The Doctor had stared at the page for so long, Martha actually grew tired of waiting.

"Well?" she asked

"Hm?" he said without looking up.

"Are you going to tell me what _accounts' being_ means, or do I have watch it on the ten-o'clock news?"

There was another long pause while the Doctor continued to squint at the page, and then he said, "Borstel says that the Hepec Volumes don't exist in the way that we think they do. He thinks that _every book in the universe_ is a Hepec Volume. Or could be."

"Pardon me?"

"You heard me: _any book in the universe_. I think that,_ No purveyor nor accomplice crosses victory by way of fabrication... unadulterated fortitude derives itself from accounts' being, _means that you can't fake it by writing it down. Real power comes from stories that _already exist_. Which is why you have to choose your _source of words_, or your book, carefully, with as many details in-place as possible. Otherwise, you wind up with whole worlds, whole scenarios, even possibly time pockets, that have a bunch of stuff in them that you had not counted on."

"Oh my God," she mused, her eyes wide. "So does that mean that anyone in the universe to whom it occurs to fashion pages of text into some sort of unnoticeable garment could have the pages' stories come true for them? Because I had a friend at school who used to stuff wads of newspaper into her bra, and it would explain a lot about how her life turned out."

"Well, no," he told her, pushing his finger against the page, roughly where he had been read about Borstel's thoughts. "According to this, it happens only to someone whose eyes have fallen upon the Legend."

"Ah. So this is where the real storehouse is," she said, trying not to touch the pages in front of her. "The book is... what, magic?"

Quietly, as though he didn't want the Legend to hear, he said, "It's probably imbued with some sort of quantum-powered energy that locks onto a sentient consciousness and reacts with it. Whether you are consciously aware of the rules or not, I would wager, since Borstel doesn't say that it works on anyone who as _read_ the text, only seen it. That might be why the actual words within it are so convoluted. First of all, whoever wrote it had not counted on the TARDIS translating it into your native language... and notice that even once it was in English, it was still hard to decipher. Someone knew that this could be a dangerous artifact, and did not want just anyone to know how to do it."

"So why create it at all?"

"Well, why manufacture guns, and put safeties on them? Why equip a nuclear bomb with a failsafe?"

"Was this intended as a weapon?" she asked.

"Most things like this _are_ intended as weapons. We make them just in case we need them, but we don't want to be irresponsible about it, so we put idiot-proof devices on them. Doesn't always work, but we have to try, right?"

"I suppose. So what do we do about it? It's not like we can confiscate every book in existence."

"Well, remember, this is just one man's theory," he reminded her. "Although, based on what we've read in the Legend, it seems like a pretty solid theory."

"So we test his hypothesis first, see if he's actually right."

"Seems like a reasonable place to start. But we have to _elect_ our _font of lexis with profound prudence_. We'd have to choose something fairly innocuous, something that doesn't have a lot of characters involved. Something that wouldn't cause too much reaction or change outside of our little world, you know? It's difficult to find a text that will remain entirely self-contained, even if it becomes manifest in a public place, which it's likely to do since the garment has to be worn in public."

Martha thought about this for a few moments, and then a mischievous smile spread across her face. "I think I have the answer."

"You do? What is it?"

She stood up from her prone position on the floor and bent to give the Doctor a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'll let you know when I've found it. Which way is short fiction?"

He pointed to his right, she thanked him, and headed deeper into the maze of books.

"Can I help?"

"Meh. I'll let you know if I run into a snag," she chirped over the stacks.

* * *

When he found her an hour later, she was sitting at a table, rather absorbed in a leather-bound volume.

"Hello," he said, startling her a bit.

She cleared her throat. "Hello."

"Are you all right? You look a bit feverish."

"I'm all right. I guess it's just a little hot in here."

"What have you found?" he asked, leaning over to see what she'd been reading.

"Well, see, here's the thing," she said, shoving a piece of paper in the book and shutting it, back cover on top. "I don't think that you should see what I've been reading."

"Why not?"

"So that we can see objectively whether what's in writing actually manifests if we wear the pages as garments," she explained. "If we both know what's going to happen, then how will we ever prove that it's the pages that are magical and not just our subconscious driving our actions?"

"Good point," he agreed, frowning, crossing his arms over his chest. "So, what do you propose?"

"I propose, you let me select the literature, I will fashion the garments. If your actions and reactions and whatnot mirror the pages, then I'll know."

"Oh," he said, raising his eyebrows. "Good idea. But don't you think I should be the one to choose the literature?"

"Why?"

"Well... you know, Time Lord. I can see consequences and possibilities, rising time pockets and whatnot."

She conceded this to him with a nod of her head. Then she said, "Well, I have chosen something that only has two characters, one room, and no interaction with anyone outside the room."

He thought about this. "Okay, I trust you. Besides, if a time pocket starts to form, I'll feel it straight away."

"And you would know how to fix it?"

"No," he shrugged.

She waited for him to elaborate or make excuses, but he did not. "Okay, then," she chuckled.

"Anything I can do to help?"

She smiled. "No. Just relax. I'll be along in a half hour or so."


	4. Chapter 4

**I know it's been a while, but this story did begin with a thread about a burrowing parasite that needed a good Doctor-style ass-kicking. We got distracted by the thing with the books... but now we return to the parasite. Just a heads-up. :-)**

* * *

PART FOUR

Martha wrapped up her work and found the Doctor, approximately an hour later. He was busying himself in one of the laboratories, researching the chemical bombs they would need to dispatch the burrowing Nosaminta parasite.

"I've set aside a few pages that we can use to verify Borstel's hypothesis," she told him slowly moving closer to him.

"Good," he told her, eyeing her as she approached.

"I've chosen two different scenarios," she told him. "Couldn't decide between them."

"Okay, well... I'll leave that to you, I guess. Have you finished reading for the moment?"

"I have. And I am now ready to devote more time to _you_," she lilted, snaking her arms around his neck. Her skin touched his, briefly, and she was hot to the touch.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, with a smirk.

Her entirely non-verbal response, over the next forty-five minutes or so, gave the Doctor a big clue as to what sort of texts she had chosen for them to test Borstel's theory. She had said originally that she had selected a self-contained story with only two characters, who never left the room... and now she was saying she had selected a second "scenario" which liked equally well. It didn't take a Time Lord to see what she meant.

And in fact, a bit later, when they, once again, lay side-by-side, sweaty, spent and breathless on the floor of yet another TARDIS facility not originally intended for such activities, he asked, "Goodness gracious, Miss Jones, what _have_ you been reading?"

* * *

For the next few days, they concentrated on what they would need to do away with the Nosaminta and its stone-burrowing, structure-compromising, building-collapsing ways. They spent hours mixing chemicals, examining the molecules and experimenting with different cocktails. They needed something that would kill the parasite, but not harm anyone else in the opera house.

They also focused some attention on their costumes, since they had decided that the best way to get close to the Nosaminta's hiding place was to go to the commemorative fancy dress ball. They had delved into a few of the TARDIS' costume warehouses and searched for the perfect thing that would let them blend in on the planet Dionumah. They needed something culturally appropriate, relatively innocuous yet clearly a costume, and properly sized.

The Doctor selected a black suit which had come originally from a planet that neighboured Dionumah. It was the formidable uniform of a constable; a straight, tunic-like jacket with eight cloth-covered buttons, capped by a grey straight collar, and finished with a pair of carefully-creased trousers. The Doctor favoured a snug-fitting garment, and anyway, he had been a bulkier man when he had acquired the uniform, so he set about altering it to suit his current, rather thin, frame. The uniform had not come with a mask, so he had retrieved a gold Mardi Gras mask from the depths of one of his bedroom drawers. He tried it on, and it fit well, so he left it on the night stand until ready to wear.

Martha decided on a butterfly costume, which the Doctor said had probably come from Earth, but he could not remember who had worn it or why. Whoever it was, she had been an inch or two shorter than Martha, because the lavender-coloured tulle skirt hit her well above the knees, and she reckoned it was made to fit longer. The strapless bodice, though, was like a corset, fitting taught and flattering her thin waist and curvy hips, pushing her breasts up toward her chin. It was made of some kind of iridescent lavender fabric, and capped off at the bustline with silvery, feathery embellishments. The same embellishments also lined the bottom of the bodice and the v-shaped rift in the back where the garment laced up.

The butterfly's wings were huge, about three feet long, and attached to the laces in the back. They were made of shiny lavender and royal purple silken netting and lined with the silvery embellishments, sporting diamond-like rhinestones in a spiral pattern. Martha took a dive into another costume warehouse to find appropriate shoes. A pair of high-heeled silver sandals caught her eye, and when she tried them on, she was very impressed with what they did for her height and the shape and colour of her legs.

The butterfly costume _had_ come with a mask, but she had discarded it and left it in the warehouse.

She did not have any need to alter the outfit, so she hung it in the bedroom until the ball. So, while the Doctor was altering his clothing, she locked herself in one of the workshops and coyly refused to say what she was doing.

* * *

When the night finally arrived, they packaged and calibrated the chemical bombs and put them in the console room, ready to go. Then, the Doctor and Martha retired to dress in separate quarters - she in the workshop, he in one of the labs, and they met up in the bedroom to admire one another.

The Doctor was more than a little taken aback by her costume. He had seen it before, but only on the hanger (as far as he could remember, anyway) and had not anticipated the difference it would make once _she_ was in it. He found her breathtakingly beautiful even on her worst day, and he appreciated every inch of her, but...

...well, he felt almost ashamed of the effect of the high heels and cleavage. Suddenly his no-nonsense, comfortably lovely and sometimes demure companion was a bombshell with sinewy golden brown legs that seemed to go on forever, and a formidable rounded bust.

"Wow," he said, his throat going dry.

"Yeah?"

Gulping, he answered, "Yeah."

"Thanks." Then, she seemed to look him over for the first time, and she blushed, and looked away.

He smiled. "Why are you blushing?"

"I went to Catholic school," she replied, returning his smile. "And I'm not supposed to have these feelings."

He turned and looked at himself in the mirror once more. "I suppose I do look a little like a priest," he commented. Then his voice switched to mock-earnestness. "But I am, in fact, a constable."

"Yes," she sighed, once again looking him over. "Which brings me to my little surprise."

"Another surprise?" he asked.

"I have this for you," she said, reaching into a little canvas bag she had brought with her from the workshop. She produced a black and white mask and held it reverently in both hands for the Doctor to take. He picked it up gingerly and examined it.

"Papier mâché?" he asked.

"Mm-hm," she answered.

"Did you paint it yourself?"

"Mm-hm," she repeated.

He ran his fingers gently over the beautiful swirling pattern, reminiscent of a large paisley.

"Well, you _are _a talented woman! And this is so much better than that gold Mardi Gras rubbish," he told her, pulling the elastic band back and fitting the mask over his head and eyes. It fit perfectly around his eyes, extending down the sides like legs to cover part of his cheeks, but leaving just enough room for his mouth and nose.

"I agree," she said, admiring her work.

"And it fits!"

"I used the gold Mardi Gras rubbish as a model," she told him. "You said it fit, so I reckoned..."

"It's brilliant, Martha."

"Thank you," she chirped. She produced another mask from the bag, identical except the paisley pattern was painted in lavender and royal purple. She fitted it over her face, and asked, "Now, what do you think of this one?"

"I love it," he said with a smile. She could see him smiling, but marvelled at how much of his wonderful face, and its expressive nuances, were obscured now.

"Shall we be off, then?" she asked, gesturing grandly toward the bedroom door.

He sighed. "I'd much prefer to stay here and enjoy that costume properly," he told her, taking her in again with his greedy, masked eyes.

"Sssh," she lulled. "Hold that thought."


	5. Chapter 5

PART FIVE

Approximately ninety per cent of the guests at the ball were masked, though all were in what could be deemed "fancy dress." Upon an inspection of the clientèle, Martha saw what the Doctor had meant when he'd said this planet's culture was very similar to that of Earth. Humanoid inhabitants, roughly the same size and shape as Earth's, costumes of shiny fabrics, laces and spangles, dark strangers and familiar dances. The travellers entered the ball hand-in-hand, heads held high, acting like they actually belonged.

In a canvas bag in the Doctor's other hand were two bombs filled with poisonous gas, a Geiger-like counter to measure toxicity in the air, and two putty guns filled with non-permanent adhesive. Also, the bag contained two masks fashioned from the papier mâché'd pages of a text very carefully chosen by the lovely Martha Jones.

The Doctor had ample evidence of the sort of material the pages contained. Without using any words, Martha had made the genre of fiction fairly clear, but only she knew the exact details, which was part of what made this whole farce so enticing.

Before them was a great, grand staircase, the banisters gilded and accompanied by humanoid figures in statue form on either side of the staircase. Guests in opulent costumery flowed up and down, back and forth, like liquid in a whirlpool. Behind the staircase, there seemed to be people moving in time with music in a slightly darker area. Music came from all around, an _andante_ beat that made one want to sway one's hips. The Doctor had been right; the fancy dress ball was mysterious and just a little bit sexy.

Looking up, they saw three more stories of party, of guests moving about in and along the edges of balconies, some private and some not, whose rails were gilded in the same manner as the staircase banisters. Some of the balconies had small bars in them, and some of them just had places to sit, drink, mingle and moon-eye.

The Doctor reached into the canvas bag and extracted one of the bombs, the toxicity indicator, an adhesive gun, and his mask. He handed the bag to Martha, with similar articles in it, minus the indicator. Her short, tight, strapless costume left no places to hide such things, whereas the Doctor had some nice, deep pockets in his black constable's uniform.

"Remember the plan?" he asked her, trying to squirrel away the implements.

She nodded. "Yep."

"This shouldn't take more than a few minutes. I'll meet you on _that_ balcony, there, and then we can have a little fun," he said, indicating one of the balconies with a nod of his head. He had chosen one where no-one stood, looking down at the crowd.

"All right," she agreed with a little half-curtsy. "See you in a few."

At that point, they went their separate ways. The Doctor had ascertained from some infrared footage of the building that the structure-toppling Nosaminta Parasite was likely living in a silo-like tower in the rear of the building. It had once been used for storage, but these days, it was mostly empty and unfrequented, which was part of what made it the perfect living grounds for a stone-burrowing creature that wanted to camp out and not be seen.

As per the plan, Martha found one of the auxiliary staircases in the back, and climbed up as high as possible (no mean feat in her sexy high heels). She found the well-hidden door marked _Storage_, and went through it into the upper part of the silo, out onto a bridge, under which there seemed to be a drop into black infinity. She set the bomb on the bridge gently, started up the detonation timer, and then backed out of the space, sealing shut the door with the temporary adhesive. The poison was supposed to be harmless to anyone other than the parasite itself, but the Doctor hadn't wanted to take any chances. The adhesive was meant to last just about as long as the poison (which was approximately twenty hours.).

Down on the ground floor, the Doctor was detonating his own bomb, to cover all parts of the silo. He would take a toxicity scan down there, and adjust the plan as necessary.

But for the moment, Martha was finished. She walked carefully back down the stairs to the first floor, where the balconies were. The canvas bag, the Doctor had told her, was disposable, as was the adhesive gun, so she discarded them both. She then took a deep breath, looked at the luxurious surroundings and the titillating party going on around her, caught a little chill, and put on her mask. She made her way to the designated location, and leaned on the golden railing, looking down at the spectacular churning mass of bodies below.

After about two minutes, she felt a presence behind her. Hands closed around her upper arms gently, and caressed them up and down. She shuddered just from the touch. The experiment of the Hepec Volumes was beginning.

She sighed. "Mm, hello."

There was no answer. Instead, she felt hot breath on the back of her neck, and then a soft kiss on the sensitive flesh where her hair had been swept up. Something about the kiss, and even the touch, felt foreign. But she knew that the whole thing was taking place because they were both playing a role, that the erotic scenario on the pages was driving the action, at least somewhat. She recognised that she didn't feel quite herself, so why should the Doctor's familiar touch feel like _itself_ at this moment?

Hands curled around her middle, and she looked down at them. Black sleeves, not brown pin-striped or blue - another thing that did not feel familiar. But it was okay. It was okay. He pulled her to him, and he began to plant voracious, hungry kisses along her jugular and bare shoulders. She let out something between a sigh and a moan, and let her head loll to one side, and she shut her eyes. As she surrendered to the strangeness, she began to feel her doubt being swept aside, and something else clouding her senses. Lust, yes, but also some sort of cohabitating presence in her mind. It was not a hostile takeover, as it were, just a gentle reminder that her conscious mind was not _entirely_ in control, though it still had its doubts.

He pushed her forward, pinning her between the railing and himself, and she felt a very distinct readiness, hardness against her lower back. Then she felt his hands pull back from her middle and land on the sides of both of her thighs. They moved up, taking her short tulle skirt and tugging it up over her bum. Fingers from the left hand snaked beneath the fluffy fabric and felt for her knickers.

The right hand had ceased touching her, and she could guess where it had gone when she heard the zip go on his black uniform.

When she heard that, her eyes flew open. Something about that sound had pushed her conscious mind back into the driver's seat.

She looked down at the crowd below. She had done some _wild_ things with him since they began the carnal portion of their relationship. She had never said no to him, no matter what. Nine hundred years' worth of fantasies resided in that labyrinth of a mind of his, having twisted and turned and grown a bit dark along with the rest of his thoughts. But she had never hesitated, never balked, ever.

But he had never before requested any sort of liaison in the presence of others. No-one was looking up at them, and they had the balcony to themselves. Passers-by were not paying any attention to the folks on the sidelines, and their positioning was such that perhaps no-one would notice, even if anyone did happen to look their way. And what of it? They were strangers on this planet, and both wearing masks. If someone did judge them, they couldn't really be recognised and they could head for the hills and never be seen 'round these parts again. What did they care what anyone thought of them?

Still, Martha couldn't help but wonder, as he prepared to fuck her in front of a thousand admittedly distracted other eyes, _is this what he thinks of me? Is this what he thinks of our relationship? Is he really prepared to uncork everything we've had together, and release all the intimacy? Was there ever any intimacy to begin with?_

She thought of the past few months and all the various naughtiness in which they had engaged. They had rarely ever gone to bed together and taken their time, looked each other in the eyes and "made love" in a conventional way. And even when they had, it never remained as close and restrained as it had begun. Until now, she had thought that that was a good thing. Most of their fun had been had on floors in various rooms, on desks, tables and counters, half the time with some kind of prop. Maybe she _had_ been naïve to think that this all _meant_ anything to him. As she thought about it now, she had very little evidence that he viewed her as anything other than a friend and a toy. Maybe there _wasn't_ any intimacy. Maybe there never really had been. Maybe that's why he was so eager to take her right here: for him, there was no hesitation to let the world in, because there was sense of anything to let it into.

She understood that he was wearing the mask and was under some kind of thrall, but so was she! She could still feel the Hepec effect working on her, but _she_ had managed to pull it under control and have second thoughts! _She _had got her conscious mind into working order, and he had a ten times stronger mind than did she!

But was that the infernal power of Hepec? Maybe the more complex the mind, the stronger the effect, the more difficult it was to push it out.

The scenes on the pages she had chosen had not taken place in public - she had seen to that so that an unwanted time pocket or parallel universe, or other disaster, was less likely to reveal itself.

And was _this_, too, the infernal power of Hepec? Determined to wreak havoc on your life, not matter how careful you are?

He took her hands and pressed them into the gilded railing in front of her. He leaned over her, bending her forward. She opened her mouth to protest, nevertheless wondering if she should...


	6. Chapter 6

**My good friend Soul93 is very clever indeed... ;-)**

* * *

PART SIX

The Doctor parted from Martha, and as she began to climb the stairs, headed to the silo in back, he made his way to the other side of the staircase and across the dance floor. Building schematics had told him that there was a gents' loo there, with a panel that led into the former storage area.

He walked into the gents', and to his surprise, no-one was about. He went straight for the panel, and sonicked it off. What was left was a jagged hole in the wall, he reckoned just barely wide enough for him to get through. He said a quick 'thanks' to the Powers that Be, that his current regeneration happened to be so thin.

He took a quick peek in a full-length mirror. His pockets bulged at his hips and he needed to be streamlined to crawl through the hole, so he took the toxicity indicator, the adhesive gun, the mask and even the sonic screwdriver, and set them on the counter beside the sink. He took the chemical bomb and put it through the hole, and heard it softly _thud_ on the other side. He reckoned it must be about a four-foot drop to the floor.

He pushed himself, feet-first through the hole, his shoulders being the biggest obstacle to getting through. Once inside, the floor beneath his feet felt much more like silt than anything solid. He knelt down to touch it, and he had been right. The floor of the silo had not been finished - it was left as-is, with the native fine sand of this part of the planet Dionumah. This would make the bomb slightly unstable. It probably wouldn't hurt _that _much, but it was just enough of a risk to make him swear softly into the oppressive dark.

He began the timer on the bomb and set it down, feeling around to make sure he put it in a relatively flat, hard spot. Then, he crawled, this time head first, back through the hole into the gents'.

As he pushed his shoulders awkwardly through, a man stepped through the door from the dancefloor.

"Erm, hello," he said to the Doctor, who was hanging through the hole in the wall.

"Hi," said the Doctor.

"Need a hand?" asked the man.

"Sure, thanks," the Doctor answered. "Infinity?"

"Yep," said the man, referring to his costume.

"I like it," the Doctor commented as the man grabbed his forearms and tried to help him through.

He was wearing black trousers and what looked like a baseball tee-shirt. The long sleeves were black and the torso was white, covered with black sideways figure-eights. He was wearing a mask, also white with black sideways figure-eights.

The Doctor made it through the opening, and landed on the floor on his bum with a smack.

"You okay?" asked Infinity.

"Yeah, I'm fine," the Doctor answered, standing up, brushing himself off. "Thank you for the help."

"No problem. What are you doing in there, anyway?"

"Erm... I'm a kind of... exterminator. There's a pest. I just set off a poisonous bomb."

"Oh!" the man said, with a look of alarm, apparent, even through the mask.

"Don't worry - it's not toxic to you. Besides, as soon as I'm done, I'm going to seal off that panel with airtight adhesive."

"Well, okay. Good luck. I'm just gonna..." said Infinity, gesturing toward a urinal.

"Sure," said the Doctor, turning back to his task.

He knelt beside the hole, calibrating the toxicity indicator. He waited for it to warm up, and then began fiddling with the dials.

"One thing," said the man using the urinal.

The Doctor was surprised that a man using a urinal would speak to another man. "Erm, yes?"

"Is that your uniform?" he wanted to know.

"Oh, no," said the Doctor. "We came in costume, so as not to alarm anyone."

"We?"

"Erm, yeah, I've got this... companion. She's up at the top, planting another bomb."

"I see."

There was a pause. "Are you here alone?"

"Hm? No, I came with my girlfriend. She's a chorus singer in the opera company. She's dressed as a zero."

The Doctor chuckled at that, and the man flushed. The indicator was now calibrated, so the Doctor leaned through the hole and placed it on the floor.

"Well, good luck to you and your... companion. Whatever that means," Infinity said as he finished washing his hands.

"Thanks," the Doctor said, turning his head slightly. "And thanks again for helping me not be trapped in a wall."

"You're welcome. Have a good night."

The Doctor then heard the gents' door open and shut, and then the echoing room went silent. Just then, the bomb went off, and some foul-smelling smoke began to fill the air, and he waited for the indicator to give the toxicity result.

_Your companion... whatever that means._

The Doctor sighed. What _did _that mean? And more importantly, how had they managed to get this far without discussing what that meant?

Well, the fact was, he just didn't know what it meant. He supposed he should, but he didn't.

He made a mental tally of what he _did _know: He knew that she was fantastic, brilliant. He knew that she was his best friend in this whole, crazed universe, the one being (besides his TARDIS) that he could trust with anything. He knew he'd felt that way about her almost since the moment he met her, and he had no idea why.

He knew they had an explosive physical relationship - a rapport and wicked compatibility that he had never experienced, the sort of thing that seemed to set fire to the air around them. He knew that at this point, he was virtually helpless against her once she got sex on her mind, and vice versa. He knew that she would, and had, done almost anything to please him...

And he knew that she loved him.

And he cursed softly again. All at once, things made a kind of sense, and oddly, that made him a little sick. _Of course_ she would do anything for him or with him - she was in love. It was the first time the revelation had come to roost that perhaps Martha might feel a little used.

And who could blame her? He got literally _whatever_ he wanted from her, and then some, all the while knowing that she has a deep and abiding attachment to him that ran far deeper than just some shagging in the anteroom. And he had never bothered to say anything to her about it, never bothered to reassure her...

...of what? Well, that was just it. Reassure her of what?

That he loved her? He couldn't be sure of that himself, not yet, and there was no way he was going to say it unless he was sure.

That he cared about her? She _had _to know that by now, didn't she? And anyway, it was a placating, impotent thing to say.

That he found her brilliant and compassionate, and felt a surge of lust whenever he thought about being alone with her? That there was definitely an infatuation growing within him, a desire to _have_ her all the time, to possess her, claim her...

Wow.

He realised then that there was no single sentence that would do the trick, no magic incantation that would make all the unevenness and angst go away. Only the truth would do that, and the truth was a hell of a lot more complicated than a simple, "I (insert verb) you." He had to _talk _to her, really talk to her. As soon as possible. He reckoned that just his initiating the discussion would bring her some peace of mind...

Suddenly, he felt very impatient to see her, and started tapping his finger against the toxicity indicator and whispered to it, encouraging it to hurry.

When it _finally_ spit out its result, the Doctor was satisfied that the toxic concentration in the air in the silo would effectively kill the Nosaminta, if it was, in fact, in the silo. Of that, he was relatively sure, given the trajectory of the building's damage over the past few weeks and the temperature gauges on the infrared scope. Now, all that was left was to replace the wall panel and seal it up.

The Doctor did as good a job as he could, without taking too long. He wanted to get to Martha, but he also didn't want to take any chances with a giant towering tank of poison gas, even if it was, in theory, only harmful to the parasite.

At last, he discarded the adhesive gun, stashed the indicator in his pocket once more, and reached for the sonic screwdriver and the mask he had left on the counter.

"Wait... what?" he asked aloud, examining the mask.

The mask in his hand was black and white. More accurately, it was white with sideways figure eights. The mask that Martha had made for him had been black and white swirl, in a paisley-like pattern. The mask in his hand was clearly made of some kind of synthetic material, whereas _his_ mask was made from the papier mâché'd pages of...

"Uh-oh," he whispered. Then he bolted for the door.


End file.
